You knew I had to review this one, eh? Here is the original Star Soldier for the old Nintendo Entertainment System. This game here was created by Hudson soft in 1986 for the Japanese Nintendo Disk Drive (the Famicon DD) and then it was converted to an cartridge here for us in North America if any of you care. Is the game worth dusting off and picking up though?

Star Soldier is about a sole warrior's mission to rid the galaxy of the sinister Star Brain life forms that now control 16 huge areas of space. It's going to be tough but your starship, the Caesar, can pack some decent firepower so you can become a true Star Soldier of the galaxy. OK, that story sucked but maybe the actual game will be better?

Back in the late 1980's a lot of crappy shooters were released at that time for the NES (anybody remember Star Force, Mag Max, Xevious, and other junk out there that cause me to drink for example), but Star Soldier had a slight edge over the competition. This shooting game featured a cool power up system that gave you a shield and five way rapid fire shot at the same time once you are full strength. Not only that, it also changed the background music from a boring low key stuff to the more intense musical track to help bring you deeper into the action. The rest of the sound effects are standard shooter stuff and are not too exciting.

Another feature with Star Soldier that I'm not to thrilled with, is this weird map overlay system they have here. Sometimes your ship will go under a part of game's level map and this means that you won't get hit by that group of enemies and it sounds great in theory. The problem is you can't shoot in this state as well for whatever reason. Hudson tried to make the game too innovative but in the end this feature is just way too confusing and it happens too randomly. Unfortunately this annoying feature keeps Star Soldier from being a classic.

The graphics are pretty substandard even for the NES and that's pretty bad. The game is filled with several tiny, poorly drawn enemies and it's easy to get sick of the repetitive backgrounds here as well. The colours are also on the bland side with poor use of shading and lack of variety, but it's not all bad. The game has some cool looking Star Brain bosses and the game moves at a nice furious pace too.

Sure you got to love that name, but the first ever Star Soldier does definitely pales in comparison to today's standards thanks to it's weak graphics and sometimes unfair game play here. I think the game would have been much better if you didn't die instantly from a hitting a enemy and they got rid of that whole stupid mapping system. Hudson Soft really needs to hire me as a game tester, eh? To be fair though the game is still a fun fast pace classic shooter with some decent sounds, and a lot of challenge action here. The game may come with both minor and major problems holding it back but this Star Soldier game is easy to get it cheap for 1 to 5 bucks so it won't break your balls either.

Star Soldier overall rating: 55/100
Original release: January 1989
Publisher: Taxan
Creators: Hudson Soft

For 1 player only
graphics: 5/10
sound: 6/10
gameplay: 6/10
replay: 5/10

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-Star...... I mean, Mr. Darius!
(Ryan Genno)

Recommended: Yes